


Tales of the Pythonic Oracle

by dog_mu



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 09:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7886563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dog_mu/pseuds/dog_mu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the Oracle at Delphi was still devoted to Gaia, instead of being taken over by Apollo?  An alternate take on some Greek myths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tales of the Pythonic Oracle

Listen, my children, and I will tell you a story, a story of the Oracle at Delphi, sacred to Mother Earth. Gather round, find a warm and comfortable spot, and I shall begin.

  
Mnemosyne, mother of Muses, aid my mind that I may remember clearly. Calliope, Muse of Epics, touch my voice that I may inspire my listeners. Gaea, great Mother, guide my soul that I may speak only truth.

  
My tale begins long ago, before the Oracle was known to mankind. Then Delphi was merely a small village with no claim to fame, save that the hills nearby were inhabited by an enormous snake, called Python. This snake, a daughter of Gaea, was longer than ten men laid end-to-end, could slither faster than a horse could run, had venom that could slay an ox in two heartbeats, and was impossible to surprise or ambush in her native hills. Her skin was as hard as a bronze breastplate, was white as milk by day and black as pitch by night, and sparkled like a hundred hundred diamonds in the sunlight. In the summer, Python often laid an egg, the size of a man, out of which would hatch all sorts of serpents and reptiles, which would slither away over the whole of Greece to the places where Gaea wanted them to live. Fortunately for the inhabitants of Delphi and their stock, Python rarely ate, spending most of her time sunning or sleeping.

  
In the year of which I sing, the rains had not fallen as usual, the crops were shriveled, and wild game was scarce. A hunter from Delphi, Anchestes by name, was hunting in the hills. Only the knowledge that Python often slept many months when game was scarce gave him the courage the enter her normal hunting grounds. On that day, the drought was broken by a furious and violent storm. While Anchestes welcomed the change of weather, the cold wind and rain were more than he could stand, so he sought refuge in a cave. While examining the cave for signs that it was inhabited by snakes or other beasts, his eye was drawn by a sparkling on the wall. Scraping earth and dust away, he discovered some gems, quite large and perfect. After the storm had passed, he returned to Delphi and planned an expedition to find more gems. When he returned, armed with baskets, shovels, picks, and a mule to carry supplies, he was dismayed to find that Python was awake and patrolling her territory as she usually did. Faced with the prospect of dealing with a beast capable of outrunning him and swallowing him whole, his desire for more money was outweighed by his desire to live to enjoy his wealth, and he returned to Delphi. He sold the gems, bought land and slaves, and became a prosperous landowner.

Now Anchestes wished to conceal the source of his wealth, but he had to tell the gem merchant where he had gotten the gems, lest he be suspected of stealing them. One of the merchant’s workers overheard and told his wife, she told a friend, and the friend told a friend. Before long, word of the gems had spread not only to all of Delphi but to cities as far away as Athens and Sparta. Many men came seeking riches, and most of them ended up in Python’s gullet, or killed by other treasure-hunters. Only a few found any gems, and those only a few, small, flawed examples. After a few years, these disappointing results discouraged most of those who had heard, but still men came occasionally to look. Anchestes sometimes made money by selling those treasure-seekers directions to the cave where he had found his gems, but no one found it and returned to tell.

Two years passed. A couple in Delphi named Pyreus and Maia wanted children but had none. One night a dream came to Maia as she lay in bed with her husband.

See her now, lying beside her husband, covered in sweat despite the cool air flowing in from the window. She sees herself and Pyreus watching his sisters having children while her womb remains empty. She sees them consulting doctors, herbalists, priests, and wandering witches, all to no avail. She sees the fear-tinged image of her husband casting her off for a younger, more fertile woman. Suddenly her dream changes: she stands on the step of a temple made of rough-hewn stone. Above her are double doors made of horn. The doors open slowly. A woman steps through, dressed in brown and green and veiled in white and gray. She is heavy with child. “Maia, faithful worshipper, dutiful wife, hear these words. I have heard your pleas and answered them. Follow my voice and you will find what you seek.”

Maia awakened with a start, the words still ringing in her ears. Pyreus lay still, breathing softly and steadily. Quietly, she crept from their bed and dressed. Moments later, she left the house, silencing the dogs and leaving them puzzled behind her. She scrambled through the hills, following the voice from her dream. Sometimes it seemed to be ahead of her, sometimes directly beneath her feet. At last she came to a cave mouth in the side of a hill. She entered and found it unexpectedly warm. “Here, Maia,” said the voice, and she followed it to a crack in the cave floor. A thin, grayish cloud rose from the crack. “Breathe, Maia,” said the voice. She inhaled deeply and felt the vapors rush into her lungs, into her blood, into her mind.

Suddenly the cave is no longer dim, but instead brightly lit and colored, with points of light sparkling from the walls. The voice thunders in her ears and her veins, its syllables composed of the rushing of the wind and the pounding of her heart. “Look there, Maia.” She looks deeper into the cave, and sees a baby boy lying on the smooth floor. Strangely, she also sees him as a grown man, strong and healthy, and as an old man, stooped and lined. Beyond him she sees a shadowy line of people stretching into the future. “Behold your son, Maia. Remember to tell him this: he and his line can achieve anything he sets his hand, mind, and soul to, but only if they never lie. Tell him, tell his children. Go now, Maia, with the blessing of the Mother.” Maia staggers toward the child and falls to her knees beside him. The colors of the walls and the thundering of the winds fade, leaving only the warm and breathing reality of the boy on the floor in front of her.

As dawn was tinting the sky pink, Pyreus stirred, spreading his arm across the bed. Finding only cold sheets, he woke fully and looked around in confusion. He sat up and called for Maia, but heard no reply. Hurriedly, he rose and left the room to search for her.

By the time the sun had cleared the horizon, the entire household was in an uproar. Family and tenant farmers had searched the house and fields. Pyreus had sent to the temple to see if Maia was there. All their efforts were in vain; Maia was nowhere to be found. Pyreus was organizing a party to search the hills for Maia or (he feared) her remains, when a child shouted from the edge of the crowd. There, her hands and face scratched, her clothes half-gone, was Maia. When Pyreus reached her, she handed him a bundle wrapped in the torn hem of her garment. He opened it to reveal an infant, who squinted at him and burbled in greeting.

When he looked at Maia in confusion, she said “This is my son, named Gedoreus, for he is truly a gift of the Earth.” He stared at her for a moment, then looked down at the child and replied “We should return home, wife. We need to prepare a room for our son.”  
…

Gedoreus grew up to become an expert farmer, bowman, and woodworker, being adept at making arrows and spears. He had two flaws, however: he liked to impress people, and he didn’t always consider the consequences of his actions.

When he was a young man, he lusted after the village beauty, a girl named Lestia, who admired heroes. One day, a hunter named Lukus brought in two boars, both large and vicious beasts. Gedoreus traded the hunter one hundred well-made arrows in exchange for one boar. He was watching the boar while a servant hired a cart to carry it, when Lestia came by and saw him with it. Thinking that he had killed the beast, she began to admire his prowess. Wishing to keep her admiration, he invented a dramatic story of firing dozens of arrows into the boar, and then finally killing it with a spear which shattered into a hundred fragments. While he was telling this story, the servant returned with a cart and a muscular youth to help pull it. Upon seeing the boar, the youth exclaimed “Lukus is a indeed a great hunter to have slain such a monster!” Outraged at being lied to, Lestia slapped Gedoreus and flounced off to find Lukus. Embarrassed, he returned home with the boar. When his mother heard of this incident, she was dismayed, and reminded him of the Earth Mother’s words. Gedoreus knew he had violated them and had forfeited Gaia’s promise.  
True to the Earth Mother’s words, Gedoreus never amounted to much after that, but he always remembered the prophecy and never lied.

Many years passed. Gedoreus' son Balekles became a great farmer and vintner, and his wines were known far and wide for excellence. He always remembered to thank Mother Earth for her bounty. In turn, his son Ptolemy carried on with winemaking, but he sometimes exaggerated the virtues of his wares and never achieved the skill of his father.  
Balakles's daughter Lestia (named after her maternal grandmother, the same girl that Gedoreus had broken Gaea's warning over) had visions, and once warned the farmers nearby of a hailstorm in time for them to get their stock under cover before it hit, saving them from losing many animals. Her mother Soti was planning a trip to a nearby large temple to ask the gods where she should serve. The day before Lestia’s fifteenth birthday, however, she had a vision of a cave in the hills. Soti remembered Maia's tale of the cave where she had found Gedoreus, but, try as she might, Maia could not remember the path there. Finally she remembered that Anchestes' descendants still occasionally sold the cave’s location to treasure-seekers.

Soti went to the head of house Anchestes, a solid man by the name of Gregorios, and asked for the location of the cave that Anchestes and Maia had found, so that her daughter could go there. Gregorios would normally have asked the price of a decent horse for this and expect the buyer to be eaten by Python, but Soti was a well-known woman in the town. He replied "The cave is, to tell the truth, very hard to find, lady. I should send someone with her. " He thought for a moment and said "My sons and I are busy with the business of the estate, but my brother's son Petros is free to guide you. " Secretly he thought that the boy would be little loss were he eaten by Python, and would be greatly improved by a close brush with danger in the hills. Soti had seen little of Petros, but reasoned that he could not be too incompetent. Gregorios agreed to send Petros for no cost but the supplies needed.

The following day, Petros arrived at the gate of House Gedoreus shortly after sunrise, rather put out at being rousted so early, only to find Lestia waiting impatiently. He was startled at this, for he had expected to wait while she got ready. She was dressed in a simple shift and sturdy boots. She picked up a backpack and asked him "Which way do we go?"

They walked into the hills. Lestia was eager to reach the cave; she clambered over rocks, along narrow draws, and worked through dense thickets. Frequently she was ahead of him, and he admired the shape of her legs and body. Petros had had few opportunities to be with a woman, and he began to lust after her. As they approached the cave where Achestes had found the gems, he decided to rape her, then kill her so she wouldn’t tell, and dump her body into a ravine where it would never be found. He would tear his clothes, give himself some bruises, and tell a sad story of her accidental demise. Engaged in his fantasy, he fell behind as she entered the cave. He followed her after a moment, and looked around for her. In the dimness of the cave, it took him several seconds to find her, sitting cross-legged on the other side of a crack in the floor. Her eyes were closed and there was a slight smile on her face. He crept towards her, preparing to seize her. As he circled around her, he stepped over the crack in the floor. He smelled a strange odor.

Suddenly, the light in the cave seemed blindingly bright and the sound of the wind deafening. He staggered and fell, curling into a ball. He heard Lestia rise and walk towards him, the rustling of her clothes a storm, her footsteps thunder. When she spoke he feared her voice would collapse the cave and crush them both. "The Earth Mother knows what you intended and is angry. Do you swear to serve her?"

"Yes, yes, I'll do anything!" he answered, fearing for his life.

Lestia helped him rise and walk to the mouth of the cave. He sat down while she went back in. He breathed the fresh air, gradually clearing his head. He raised his head and looked away from the cave. Between the trees a sparkle caught his eye. It was the head of Python, looking at him speculatively. He stared back for a moment, then stood and staggered back into the cave. Lestia sat where he had seen her before.

Without opening her eyes she said "Your first task is to return and tell my mother that I am where I should be. Your second task is to gather workmen to come here and build a temple, houses for priests and supplicants, and a road from Delphi. For your pay, you may have some of the gems in the wall there," and she pointed to his left. He turned and saw several gems embedded in the earth. As he extracted them, he realized that he was the first and the last of Anchestes' descendants to actually get anything from the cave. "And don't worry about Python ; she's just watching to see that you're serving Gaia."

Petros headed back to Delphi, Python his sparkling shadow through the hills. She left him only when he reached the gates of House Gedoreus' estate. With a sigh of relief, he entered, to encounter an angry Soti.

"Where is my daughter, Petros? Where did you leave her?"

"At the cave of the Earth Mother, lady. She said that she is where she should be." He was about to mention hiring workmen but she cut him off.

"I don't believe you. You've dropped her in some ravine or off a cliff."

Exasperated at being accused of what he had intended but not accomplished, he showed her one of the gems. "See! We found the cave! Would I show you this if I had killed her? What would convince you?"

Soit glared at him, then called for tablet and stylus. "Bring me a note from her that only she would write."

Petros was about to refuse, but just then a sparkle caught his eye beyond the gates. Python was watching him from behind a copse of trees. With a shudder, he agreed to go and return with a note from Lestia.

When he arrived at the cave, Lestia was sitting in front of it by a fire on which was roasting the leg of a pig. He explained her mother's demand. She smiled and answered "Gems will convince workmen, but a mother needs something more personal. I should have known but I wasn't looking." She took the tablet and stylus and wrote, then handed it back to him.

"I ought to ask for more for this," he complained. She raised her eyebrows at this. "But I'm not that stupid," he finished, turned and left.

Back at House Gedoreus, Soti opened the tablet and read "Mother, when you finish reading this, look up and you will see two eagles fly over you, one from the north and one from the east. Lestia"

She looked up and saw the eagles fly over. Silently she closed the tablet. "I didn't want to believe it, but I have to now."

 


End file.
